Martin Rundkvist's blog for 2006. Archaeology, skepticism, Sweden. And books and music and stuff.Continued at Aardvarchaeology.

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

Static self

Here's some introspection. I'll make it brief, don't go away.

Scrolling through old diaries and reading other stuff I've written, I find that I'm essentially a static personality. Since becoming a dad, I've undergone very little directional development. Every day the same me wakes up to a new set of situations, and they hardly ever change me. You could stick my days of the past seven years into a bag, scramble them and serve them up to me in random order, and I'd react pretty much the same way again to everything that happened. My days aren't interconnected, they form no narrative, I hardly remember them at a few weeks' distance. Which is why I keep the diary in the first place.

I feel like a machine that is running nicely at its intended pace, and that will continue to do so until it either receives a violent jolt (loss, heartbreak, betrayal, victory) or something wears out (Alzheimer, death).

Don't get me wrong, I quite enjoy being me. I have no wish to become someone else, even incrementally. I do have ambitions, external situations I'd like to find myself in, but I don't feel like I need improvement or modification. I'm just sitting here watching myself interact with the world. Call me a complacent bastard, I guess.

8 Comments:

I'm pretty domesticated, not really into shaking things up. Not the kind of guy to desert my family to become an international arms dealer or polar explorer. Tried to lead a dashing life of singlehood after my first marriage, lasted eight months!